On Tuesday, Hamas announced that it had signed an agreement in Beijing with other Palestinian organizations including rivals Fatah to work together for national unity, with China characterizing it as a plan to administer Gaza together once the war ends.
Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi, who welcomed top Hamas official Musa Abu Marzuk, Fatah ambassador Mahmud al-Aloul and emissaries from 12 other Palestinian groups, announced they had reached an agreement to form an ‘interim national reconciliation government’ to govern post-war Gaza.
Following the meeting with Wang and the other envoys, Abu Marzuk said, “Today we sign an agreement for national unity and we say that the path to completing this journey is national unity. We are committed to national unity and we call for it”.
The announcement comes more than nine months into a war that began with Hamas’s October attack on southern Israel, which killed 1,197 people, mostly civilians.
The operatives also took 251 captives, 116 of whom are still in Gaza, including 44 who the Israeli military claims are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory military operation in Gaza has killed over 39,000 individuals.
A serious humanitarian crisis has emerged in Gaza as a result of the ceaseless conflict.
China has attempted to play a mediator role in the conflict, which has been complicated by the fierce enmity between Hamas, which rules the Gaza Strip, and Fatah, which partially governs the occupied West Bank.
Israel has vowed to keep fighting until it destroys Hamas, and foreign countries including key Israeli backer the United States have hurried to devise scenarios for Gaza’s governance once the war ends.
Neither Israel nor the United States would support any post-war plan that includes Hamas, which is proscribed as a terrorist organization by Washington.
While it is unclear whether the agreement announced in Beijing on Tuesday can hold, it does indicate that the only world power that can engineer a rapprochement between the Palestinian rivals is China.
As the meeting in Beijing ended on Tuesday, Wang stated that the groups had agreed to reconciliation.
“The most prominent highlight is the agreement to form an interim national reconciliation government around the governance of post-war Gaza”, Wang said following the factions signed ‘Beijing Declaration’ in China’s capital.
“Reconciliation is an internal matter for the Palestinian factions, but at the same time, it cannot be achieved without the support of the international community”, Wang added.
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